glottochronology

glottochronology
/glot'oh kreuh nol"euh jee, glot'euh-/, n. Ling.
the branch of lexicostatistics that studies the rate of replacement of vocabulary and attempts to determine what percentage of basic vocabulary two presently distinct but related languages share, using the information thus obtained to estimate how long ago they ceased being a single language.
[1950-55; GLOTTO- + CHRONOLOGY]

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      the study of the rate of change occurring in the vocabularies of languages for the purpose of calculating the length of time (time depth) during which two related languages have developed independently. Glottochronology rests upon statistical comparison of the basic vocabulary shared by two or more related languages and on the assumption that the rate of vocabulary replacement is constant over sufficiently long periods of time. A number of linguists do not accept the methods or findings of glottochronology, for two reasons: the difficulty of compiling a culturally unbiased basic vocabulary list and the belief that the rate of linguistic change is not the same for all languages and is not constant for any single language.

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Universalium. 2010.

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Look at other dictionaries:

  • Glottochronology — refers to methods in historical linguistics used to estimate the time at which languages diverged, based on the assumption that the basic (core) vocabulary of a language changes at a constant average rate. This assumption, originally put forward… …   Wikipedia

  • glottochronology — 1953, from GLOTTO (Cf. glotto ) + CHRONOLOGY (Cf. chronology) …   Etymology dictionary

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  • glottochronology — noun the determination of how long ago different languages evolved from a common source language (Freq. 1) he mapped the glottochronology of the Romance languages • Derivationally related forms: ↑glottochronological • Hypernyms: ↑chronology …   Useful english dictionary

  • glottochronology — noun Date: 1953 a linguistic method that uses the rate of vocabulary replacement to estimate the date of divergence for distinct but genetically related languages • glottochronological adjective …   New Collegiate Dictionary

  • glottochronology — noun The study of languages to determine when they diverged from being the same language …   Wiktionary

  • glottochronology — glot·to·chronology …   English syllables

  • Swadesh list — A Swadesh list is one of several lists of vocabulary with basic meanings, developed by Morris Swadesh in the 1940 50s, which is used in lexicostatistics (quantitative language relatedness assessment) and glottochronology (language divergence… …   Wikipedia

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  • Glottochronologie — (v. att. griech. γλῶττα „Zunge, Sprache“ und χρóνος „Zeit“) ist das Teilgebiet der Lexikostatistik, das sich mit zeitlichen Beziehungen zwischen Sprachen befasst. Im Besonderen beanspruchen die Verfechter der Methode, zwischen als verwandt… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

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